Das Wesen und die Ziele der Chemischen Forschung und des Chemischen Studiums

Abstract

So busy are the majority of German chemists in research, that it is seldom we are privileged to have their opinions on the object of the science, and the position it should occupy as a study. Dr. Fittig has availed himself of his appointment as Professor of Chemistry in the University of Tubingen to deliver an inaugural address, in which these points are discussed with great clearness and ability. Starting with the assumption that the majority of men estimate the value of a science only by its power to satisfy want and contribute to the comfort of life, Dr. Fittig goes on to claim for chemistry from this point of view the first place among the sciences. “Where,” he asks, “is there another science which, in the application of its results to man, almost from his first breath to his last, is so true a companion as chemistry?” and he proceeds to show that it is useful, not so much in explaining what the nourishing constituents of food are, as in disclosing the laws of agriculture, and thus teaching us how to produce means of nourishment. Further, he points out that there is not an article of clothing for the preparation of which chemical knowledge has not been employed, and the same knowledge is necessary to show how the spread of disease may be prevented, and cured when it has taken hold. While these practical results are obtained by the study of chemistry, Dr. Fittig is careful to show that it is a total misunderstanding to suppose that its chief purpose is to discover brilliant colours or new medicines. Thus, without undervaluing the practical importance of the discovery of the aniline colours, it is nevertheless true that the splendid results obtained by Hofmann would have had the same interest for the chemist, had these compounds been colourless and without any technical use. So we are told, “The task of chemistry is to explain the composition of bodies and all phenomena resulting from change of this composition in order to derive the regular connection and cause of these phenomena, and therefore also of the natural laws which regulate the building up and decomposing of substances. . . . . We are compelled to multiply the number of substances already existing in nature, not for the sake of producing new bodies and benefiting the world, but to discover the eternal laws of nature. He is no true chemist who only prepares new compounds without any definite aim (although, perhaps, he has prepared a large number of compounds hitherto unknown and possibly very beautiful in appearance), and his work has no direct value for science, and can only become valuable when employed by others in its true scientific sense. . . . . True scientific researches must never be given over to chance, they must be systematically planned, begun with a clear consciousness of what is to be attained, and finished in the same spirit.” Dr. Fittig has done well to point out so clearly the true aim of the science of chemistry, and to disparage the false estimation of its value, which would make it simply a means of discovering bodies with some technical or useful application. And even in this direction, which must always be looked upon as of secondary importance, we are convinced that greater progress will be made if chemistry is regarded and studied from the high point of view so forcibly pointed out by Dr. Fittig in his interesting address.

Das Wesen und die Ziele der Chemischen Forschung und des Chemischen Studiums.

Akademische Antrittsrede gehalten von Dr. Rudolph Fittig. (Leipzig: Quandt and Händel, 1870. London: Williams and Norgate).